


The Castaway

by DeadBart



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22705603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadBart/pseuds/DeadBart
Summary: Troy has been lost for years. Abed has never stopped waiting for him to return.
Relationships: Annie Edison/Jeff Winger, Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 7
Kudos: 191





	1. The Signal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abed makes the call to adventure.

**2017**

Abed took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.

The house was on a quiet street deep in the DC suburbs. There was a well kept lawn, a little garden, and a nice stone path up to the door. Abed felt for a moment like Gandalf, standing at the door of Bag End, ready to call his friend on a grand adventure. Then he wondered if he was just dressing up an imposition in a story.

Jeff opened the door just as Abed’s Uber pulled away. He was in a t-shirt and sweatpants, barefoot. He looked tired, but his hair was still in perfect shape so Abed figured he hadn’t woken him up despite the very late hour. Jeff looked at him with a mix of joy and confusion.

“Abed? What are you doing out here, man?”

Abed smiled softly and lifted the six pack at his side.

“Just thought I’d drop by for a drink!”

“Abed its 1 in the morning and we live on opposite sides of the country.”

“Its pretty cold out here, Jeff.”

“Yeah, yeah of course come on in.”

Jeff waved him in and Abed stepped past him into a little hallway. Jeff pointed blearily at a shoe rack and Abed kicked off his checked sneakers, following Jeff through a door on the left into the living room.

The room was simple and warm. A couch sat against the wall next to the door to the hall with a coffee table sitting parallel, covered in assorted junk mail and takeout menus. On the right was a doorway leading into the kitchen. Next to that sat a lightly worn recliner. On the far wall, a TV played a muted soccer match. A picture window dominated the wall to the left. The other walls were adorned with framed pictures of friends and family. Abed smiled a little as he noticed a candid picture of himself and Hickey hung next to the door to the kitchen. Jeff inhaled.

“Sorry about the mess. Annie’s out of town for work. I always turn into kind of a slob when there’s nobody around to be neat for. Take a load off.”

He gestured at the couch and Abed slumped down, sinking into the cushions. He hadn’t been here before. When Jeff had first decided to move out to Quantico with Annie, they’d shared a small apartment. Abed had dropped by soon after they’d gotten engaged along with Britta and Shirley. The last time he’d seen Jeff and Annie was back in Colorado. They’d come back to have their wedding close to their family and friends. Ben had called in his brother to officiate a small ceremony at Greendale. They’d been married fairly early in their relationship, but it was no surprise. They’d been doing their Jim and Pam routine for years at that point. Jeff asking him to be his best man was one of the life highlights Abed often returned to in his mind.

Jeff crashed on the recliner and swivelled to face Abed. Abed tossed him a beer and took one for himself. They cracked them open and tipped them in silent greeting. Jeff regarded Abed quietly as he took a sip.

“So what are you doing out here Abed?”

Abed shifted a little and glanced at the wall of photos behind Jeff. Just to the left of Jeff’s head was a picture of the old study group (minus Pierce, who had passed away just before it was taken) posing in ragged clothes in Greendale’s cafeteria, which was trashed and cluttered with fallen furniture. Right after the end of a game of Hot Lava in their fifth year at Greendale. At the center of the group stood Abed’s partner and best friend, grinning from ear to ear.

“Its about Troy.”

Jeff frowned, looking concerned.

“What about Troy?”

“That’s what I keep thinking, Jeff. What about Troy? We don’t talk about it anymore. Ever. He just vanished and we don’t talk about it.”

Abed felt himself tearing up. Not a common experience for him. A while after Troy had sailed away, the news had reported that he and LeVar had been waylaid by pirates off the Gulf of Mexico. Years of dull Pirates of the Caribbean sequels hadn’t erased the things Abed had seen in Vice documentaries about real pirates. He’d followed the stories with great concern until one day they’d just stopped. Some old Star Trek alums made a few tweets about LeVar’s disappearance and that was that. The world moved on and Abed was left without his other half.

Jeff leaned forward.

“Abed you gotta know, we think about him all the time. I wonder every day where he is. If he’s... I wonder about him. Annie does too. I’m sorry we didn’t talk to you so much about it. We all just got so swept up in life.”

“Its cool, Jeff. I’m not mad at you guys. I don’t expect anything from you. You and Annie are probably the best friends I’ve got in the world outside of Troy. I didn’t come up here to guilt trip you. I came to ask for your help.”

“Anything for you, man. What do you need?”

Abed took out his phone, tapped an icon, and handed it to Jeff. Jeff stared at it in disbelief.

On the screen was a map of the world. 6 red dots blinked across the map. Jeff in DC. Pierce in the cemetery in Greendale County, Colorado. Britta close by at her apartment. Annie in Arkansas. Shirley in Atlanta. And one more. One light blinking in the middle of the Atlantic. Jeff looked up at Abed.

“Troy.”

Abed nodded.  
“I think so. After the news stories about the pirates came out, I checked the tracker. They were the best I could get. They broadcast all over the globe. But when I checked, Troy’s signal was gone. Something must have damaged it. Its been dead for 3 years. But then, a couple nights ago, I checked again and it was there. Troy was there, Jeff. Not all the time, just for a couple of hours at a stretch and then he goes away.”

Jeff stood up and started pacing the room.

“Abed, we’ve got to call someone. We’ve got to call everyone. I can get on the phone with Annie right now. She’s just barely out of the academy, but she’ll know what to do. She’ll know who to call about something like this.”

Abed stood up, tears now running down his face.

“Thank you, Jeff. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

Jeff pulled him into a tight hug.

“We’re going to get him back, buddy.”


	2. Salvation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Troy falls out of the world.

**2014**

The wreck came in a hurricane of thunder and violence.

Troy’s mind flashed through a slideshow of memories as he tumbled toward the icy water. Images of his friends growing smaller and smaller as he rode away on the Childish Tycoon. The sea stretching out endlessly before him. The cadre of hard men boarding his boat. LeVar putting his hands on his head. The barrel of a gun in his face.

He heard his own voice telling the men he was very wealthy and could make it worth their while to let he and LeVar go. He saw LeVar looking at him and mouthing “No.” He saw the men taking he and LeVar aboard their ship, their motivations shifting from robbery to ransom. He heard them making a call to accomplices. He saw them betrayed by the greed of the cavalry they’d called in. He heard the munitions on the pirate boat explode as gunfire ripped through the deck.

He hit the water and went under. The light of the burning pirate boat was slowly extinguished as it was swallowed by the liquid void, replaced by the light of the full moon. Darkness tugged at the edge of his mind. Images flashed.

Abed. Annie. Britta. Jeff. Shirley.

_LeVar._

Troy kicked, hard, and waved his arms. Wildly at first, then gracefully, he swam to the surface and scanned for his companion. Several yards away, LeVar clung weakly to a splintered section of the boat’s hull. Troy sliced through the chill waves, arms wheeling and legs kicking as vigorously as he could muster.

He came to the chunk of the sunken boat and wrapped an arm around LeVar just the man’s fingers came loose from the makeshift raft and he drifted into unconsciousness. Troy forced their weight onto the edge of the wood, shoving it downward into the water so he could heave himself and LeVar onto the wreckage. With a grunt he dragged his friend fully out of the water onto the raft. LeVar was still breathing, though raggedly.

Suddenly everything was very still. Troy looked down into the water and saw only inky blackness. The men who’d taken them, their betrayers, and the small boats they’d rode in on had faded like the memory of a dream. Troy was reminded of bodies fading away as characters died in an old video game, but the memory of the night’s experiences contrasted harshly with the nostalgic image.

He scanned the horizon and saw, bathed in moonlight, a stand of trees in the distance, bordered by a long strip of sand. An island. Salvation for now.

He looked down at the small section of wood which now held himself and LeVar and laughed nervously to himself.

“She definitely could have got Leo on that door.”

**2015**

LeVar had given up.

“If they haven’t found us by now, I doubt they’re still looking.”

Troy looked at him with some concern.

“How can you be so sure?”

“I think its been a year or so now. There’s just no way. With satellites and drones and all that, they would have found us by now if they knew where to look. Those pirates took us way off our course into the middle of nowhere. We’re lost.”

Troy smiled.

“You remember Lost? Those dudes were trapped on that island for like four seasons before they got rescued. We’ve still got a shot.”

LeVar’s expression couldn’t quite be described as a smile, but his frown had softened.

“I was more of a Heroes guy.”

Troy shot him a look of disgust.

“Come on man.”

LeVar laughed and finally cracked a real smile. A year ago he’d been signing autographs between gigs, getting tired of fans desperate to have an awkward conversation with him. Now he found himself on a spit of land in the Atlantic with one of those very fans and couldn’t imagine how he’d still be alive without him.

Troy treated everything like a game. In some people that would mean they didn’t take anything seriously enough, but Troy took games plenty serious. He faced each new challenge with optimism and excitement.

Their first night he’d chattered endlessly about Castaway and how much he loved camping with friends while he worked at tearing limbs off a tree to build a fire. While LeVar shivered and tried to shove down the memory of the trauma they’d just been through, Troy kept him lucid and distracted with stories about his friends. LeVar had met the little crew in passing several years earlier at the request of a now deceased friend, but Troy described them in such detail he began to feel as if he’d known them for a lifetime.

The stories became his lifeblood as he tried to live on without his wife and children on the island. While he and Troy fished with makeshift spears, he listened to the epic saga of the group rescuing their dean from a madman who’d taken over their school (who was also apparently their friend?) While they climbed trees searching for fruit, he heard all about Jeff and Annie, who Troy hoped had figured their shit out. While they gathered the sparse debris and cargo from the boats that washed up on the shoreline, Troy told LeVar about Britta, who he worried he’d done wrong and thought about every day, and Shirley, who he sometimes imagined baking him delicious treats while he chewed through the rough meals they could assemble.

Only at night, on rare occasions, did Troy talk about Abed. LeVar understood these moments to be rare glimpses into a deep space in Troy’s heart. Where he kept his memories of his family and his driving need to see them again, Troy kept his memories of Abed and his faith that the man would find him one day.

**2016**

Troy had hurt himself falling from a tree on a rough patch of rocks. His back was cut up pretty badly. LeVar had gathered fresh water from the little river they drank from in a tight basket he’d woven from bark and leaves and washed the wounds clean. As he tried his best to wrap a broad frond around Troy’s back like a makeshift bandage, he spotted something. The sun reflected sharply off something thin and round near the base of Troy’s spine.

Troy winced with pain as LeVar lifted the little device out of the cut.

“Ah shit, what is that, man?”

“Some kind of little electronic doohickey.”

Troy flipped over and grabbed the device.

“Oh man. Oh man.”

“What? Troy, what is it?”

“LeVar, this is our way home.”


	3. Flow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie gets a call.

**2017**

“JW <3 <3 <3” popped up on Annie’s phone a little after midnight. She’d been lying awake in a small motel room, mulling some things over since around 11 and welcomed the distraction.

“Hey, you! What are you calling so late for? Its like quarter past 1 in DC isn’t it?”

“Annie I need your help.”

She sat up.

“What’s going on?”

Jeff sounded sort of excited and panicked. She hadn’t heard him like this in a long time.

“I have Abed here-”

“Abed? What?”

“Abed’s here and he knows where Troy is. I figured call my FBI contact right?”

Annie’s breath caught in her throat.

“Troy? He- he knows where Troy is? What’s he doing in DC? Did he call the police?”

She could hear Jeff and Abed talking faintly for a moment.

“He called the LAPD first. You remember those trackers he planted on us?”

Annie sighed.

“Yeah. I remember those.”

“Yeah we’ll deal with that later. Troy’s signal has popped up again. But it only appears for a couple of hours each night. Abed went to the LAPD and they laughed him out the door. Ever since Troy was declared legally deceased the feds have closed the investigation and the signal wasn’t active when Abed talked to the cops. Nobody believes him, but Annie I saw it. He’s out there somewhere in the Atlantic.”

Annie tried to calm her heart and be rational. She put her hand on her temple, trying to calm a nervous headache building up.

“Jeff... its been 3 years. How do we know that signal isn’t broadcasting from a corpse?”

“Because its moving. Not much, but its circling a couple of miles out there.”

She let hope take over and the tears started flowing. Some part of her still wondered if the tracker was in the guts of a shark or a sea bird, but that voice was drowned out by the image of Troy coming home. Of the endless sleepless nights being waiting rather than mourning.

Annie composed herself and got into work mode. _Treat this like a school assignment or a work project. Get the job done._

“Okay Jeff here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to call my supervisor and tell her what’s going on. In the meantime I need you to screenshot Troy’s coordinates and send them to me.”

Jeff and Abed were speaking again.

“Okay he’s sending the coordinates to you now.”

Annie wiped the tears from her eyes.

“Thanks.”

She knew Jeff can see through her attempt at composure, even if he couldn’t actually see her.

“Its all going to be okay. He’s coming home, Annie. Troy’s coming home.”

She dropped her guard and let her voice quiver and the tears came running.

“I love you. I’ll call you back in a minute okay?”

“I love you too. I’ll be waiting.”

* * *

Troy sat quietly on the beach, holding the last of the batteries washed up from the wreck against the wires he’d wrapped around the terminals in the tracking device. The little device made no sound, but a tiny red light blinked on.

A number of car batteries had drifted in with the tide during their first week on the island. The explosion on the boat had led Troy to guess that the pirates had been smuggling explosives and these batteries were components for IEDs. Most had been too damaged to ever see use again, but two were still functional when LeVar found them. He and Troy had squirrelled them away in a dry hole beneath a tree to wait until they found a use for them.

That day came when LeVar found the tracker in Troy’s back. The battery was damaged beyond repair, but Troy was handy and within a few days he’d figured out how to draw power from the car batteries into the tracker. Every night he spent two hours holding his makeshift apparatus together, trying to stretch out his electronic call for help over as long a period as possible with the limited power he had.

He couldn’t be sure, but with how long the first battery had lasted, he thought this night would be the last night he’d be able to power the tracker. He hadn’t told LeVar. He planned to continue sitting out on the beach every night, pressing wires into place, to keep his friend from despair.

Troy had been brave for a long time. He hoped LeVar thought it came easily. He wanted to inspire confidence, but he was coming to the end of his rope.

Memories had carried him this far, but his memories were fading. He tried to conjure up the images of the faces of his friends, of his parents, of anyone, and all he saw was darkness. His life before the island was beginning to feel like a dream. As if he’d been born a grown man on this spit of earth in the endless sea and had only dreamed growing up in Colorado. Deep in the woods he’d carved crude drawings of his friends on a slab of stone and day by day the memories of their faces became more and more faded and abstract, as if they were changing to match the stick figures in the woods.

Troy looked back to make sure LeVar was asleep. Finally he felt safe to cry.

Just as the tears started coming, a bright light from the water illuminated his face. Everything went white. A voice magnified by a megaphone shouted.

“Troy Barnes?!”

Troy fell to his knees in the sand and sobbed, no longer worried about LeVar seeing him. He was free of all burdens. He was saved.


	4. Falling in Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Troy works to get his bearings.

_**2017** _

After years of identical days and nights which seemed to stretch into infinity, the journey home felt like a blur of activity.

The Mexican authorities loaded Troy and LeVar onto a small coast guard boat where they were met by a representative from the US embassy. The man was asking questions and telling them what would happen next, but it all washed away into a soft, incomprehensible buzz as Troy stared out of the back of the boat at the island shrinking away behind them. The place that had come to be his whole world vanished into the distance. A painful sensation of deja vu struck him.

As Troy returned to lucidity, he found LeVar was already there, asking the embassy rep about his family and friends and the general state of the world since they’d been stranded. Troy wanted to ask a million questions, but he felt it was probably better to let LeVar get his updates first. The man had a wife and children to worry about.

* * *

As if by magic, Troy found himself standing at an airport in a fresh set of clothes with his hair cut, his face shaved, and the funk of three years lost at sea washed away. He and LeVar had been separated along the way. LeVar was hopping a plane to California to meet with his family in Sherman Oaks. Troy had been handed a ticket and told he was being flown to DC where he’d be housed until a permanent living arrangement could be set up. A government handler was keeping an eye on him while he waited for his flight; making sure he hadn’t gone yelling-at-volley-balls crazy he supposed.

Troy hadn’t said a word to anyone since boarding the boat. He felt lost and confused, like he was running in a dream. He couldn’t tell if he was afraid to wake up or hoping for it. The return to a loud, crowded reality from the purgatory of the island and the endless ocean was jarring, like stepping out of a dark movie theatre to find yourself in harsh sunlight. The thought brought back memories of movie nights with Abed. They’d gone with Annie to see Gravity a while before he left on his trip. Annie had spent half of the movie panicking as Sandra Bullock fell through space, terrified she’d be lost to the void. Abed’s eyes had lit up as he watched the images on the screen, the work of hundreds of artists painting 24 masterpieces per second just for him.

Before they met, Troy had been directionless, chasing whatever would make people think he was cool. Abed had swept him up in his own wild path, leading him on voyages into their imaginations that took him places he never thought possible. He’d left Greendale on his voyage to be his own man and find his own path, but the memory of the wonder in Abed’s eyes haunted him. Following Abed hadn’t been like playing cool for his high school friends. Sometimes he’d felt like the muse to some great artist, never fully understanding what it was that he was inspiring, but just content to be part of the process.

The plane was boarding. Troy felt like Sandra Bullock. Falling through space.

* * *

Jeff and Annie were waiting for him at the airport in DC. Troy spent a single second trying to keep it together before running full tilt into their arms. They held him tight for a long moment before he pulled away. Jeff stood with his hands on Troy’s shoulders and regarded him quietly for a second.

“You look pretty good for a guy who’s been living the Robinson Crusoe life for three years. What’s your secret?”

Annie smacked Jeff in the ribs. Troy laughed harder than the joke probably warranted. He was relieved that Jeff was here to meet him. The guy was kind of a wreck sometimes, but he was sturdy and consistent when it counted, always ready with a wisecrack to make the scariest situations feel like nothing. He hadn’t changed a bit. Except for one thing.

“Is that a wedding ring? You hitched, man?”

Annie flashed her hand to show a matching ring and Troy’s hand shot to his mouth.

“Oh shit! No way!”

Jeff laughed.

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

They were walking toward the exit now, heading into a cool evening. Troy smiled.

“I’m sorry, man but I was sure you’d mess it up.”

“What?!”

“Come on dude, I know your track record.”

They were climbing into a cab now. Troy sat between them like a kid instead of riding shotgun. Memories of cramming into the little tables in Greendale’s cafeteria flooded back. Annie smiled teasingly at Jeff.

“He got a little scared when I got a job out here in DC and spilled his guts. I took the lead from there.”

Jeff looked out the window grumpily.

“I don’t know about that.”

Waves of relief washed over Troy. His friends were tactful enough to not pile on questions about what had happened. The conversation carried on smoothly and easily, as if he’d just been away on a trip and had come home to catch up. Only one thing bothered him.

“Where’s Abed?”

“He’s back at our place. He’s been staying with us for a few days.” Annie said.

“He said he’s setting something up for you. Seemed really important to him.” Jeff added.

Troy stared forward at the passing streetlights. The driver silently glanced back at them in the rearview. Jeff and Annie took his hands and they wove on into the night.


	5. Pocket Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Troy finds the reasons he should stay.

_**2017** _

The traffic, the lights, the people, the sounds all bombarded Troy as they drove through the still bustling streets. Memories of fire and violence flooded in and he shut his eyes tightly, straining to block out everything around him. Jeff and Annie’s hands were his only anchors.

Troy wondered if he’d be able to readjust to life in the world. He wondered if he had ever adjusted in the first place. Riverside High, Greendale, the island; In these small places he’d thrived. Being penned in a small pond had been his way for his entire life. The football star, the repairman, the survivalist. He’d always had a role thrust upon him, but in some way he’d always felt shielded and isolated from the speed and noise of the world.

As the taxi drove on into an uncertain future, Troy found himself again feeling the way he’d felt in his first week at Greendale. Out of Riverside he’d found his role in life gone. He wasn’t the prom king anymore. He wasn’t the quarterback. He was just Troy. And without his role to play, he wasn’t sure who Troy was.

They pulled up to a little house, Jeff paid the driver, and they stepped out onto the sidewalk. Annie smiled gently at him.

“This is it.”

Troy lagged behind for a moment as Jeff and Annie walked to the door. As happy as he was to see them, the easy way they touched and the familiar way they spoke to each other and the rings they wore were reminders of how much of his friends’ lives he’d missed. The house drove that nail in even further.

What had become of Britta and Shirley? Of Abed? Troy wondered if the home he’d been dreaming of would be recognizable to him now.

He found himself being ushered into the open door. Jeff looked through a door to the left.

“I think Abed’s ready for you.”

Troy looked past him. Beyond the door a blanket ceiling stretched across the room and into the adjacent kitchen. Walls of pillows and cushions formed a little labyrinth. Instinctively, Troy dropped down on his hands and knees and crawled into the fort. Jeff and Annie stayed behind, looking a little confused about the state of their place.

Around a plush corner, Abed leaned against a pile of pillows and blankets, illuminated by a small lamp. Their eyes locked. Troy’s breath stopped. Time stopped. Jeff and Annie’s voices faded away. Like a pocket universe from Inspector Spacetime, it seemed to Troy that this little corner of a blanket fort in a suburban living room was the whole of reality.

Troy threw himself forward. Abed caught him in his arms.

“Thank you.” Troy whispered.

“Thank you for coming back.” Abed answered quietly.

Troy pulled back to look his friend in the eye again. Abed was crying. This was very rare. For most of Abed’s moods and behaviours Troy had long ago figured out the correct reactions, but for this he had nothing. Instinctively he leaned forward and kissed him, cradling his head gently in his hands.

As they broke apart, Troy worried for a moment that he’d crossed a line, violated some unspoken boundary, but Abed smiled at him the same way he always had and he found himself smiling back. He felt all of his fear slip away.

“You missed a lot.” Abed said, slightly tactlessly, but with his own endearing brand of tactlessness.

“Like what?” Troy asked.

Abed began running down a list of movies, TV shows, video games, and comics Troy needed to catch up on so they could talk about them. Jeff and Annie crawled into the fort and sat across the little chamber from Troy and Abed. Abed continued rambling.

“Also Britain is leaving the EU, Shirley’s living in Atlanta, North Korea might blow up the world, Abed’s been working in LA, and Donald Trump is the president, in case you wanted to know anything about the real world.” Annie interjected. Abed frowned.

“I’ve been thinking of ditching the LA life. I thought I’d get out there and make real art, but all I’ve met are hacks and suits.” He sounded a little despondent. Troy wrapped an arm around him.

“I’m loaded now, buddy. Screw Hollywood. We’re going to make the best movies anyone’s ever seen!” The future seemed so bright, expanding outward from this little oasis.

“Oh that reminds me. I brought a classic of regional independent filmmaking I’ve been wanting to watch with you since you left.” Abed dug through a backpack and produced a bootleg DVD with _Godmonster of Indian Flats_ scrawled on it in sharpie. He crawled over to the TV, which he’d set up on the floor just beneath its usual place and popped the disc in the blu-ray player.

As a wild saga of mutant sheep and terrified townsfolk played out before them, the four friends relaxed and joked and laughed like they’d never been apart. Troy looked over at Abed, that same awe he’d seen in the movie theatre all those years ago was playing across Abed’s face. This time, however, Abed was looking at him. He kissed Troy’s head softly, pulled him into his arms, and looked back at the screen.

Troy glanced over at Jeff and Annie. Jeff had fallen asleep, his head resting in Annie’s lap as she idly stroked his hair. She looked over at Troy and they smiled quietly at each other. Troy leaned his head against Abed’s chest and felt all of his worries flow away. Not just the worries he’d felt since that terrible night at sea, but the whole stew of fears and anxieties that had chased him since high school. He knew who he was now. He knew who they were. They were Troy and Abed. Forever.


End file.
